


So much work remains

by WhiskyNotTea



Series: Whisky's canon compliant one-shots [1]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 09:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskyNotTea/pseuds/WhiskyNotTea
Summary: "Shaking her head, Jenny had taken in a deep breath and let relief flood her.Jamie was alive, thank God."Jenny contemplates her life after receiving Jamie's trunk from Leoch. Set in Outlander.





	So much work remains

“Aye, that’s my lad,” Jenny said and smiled, as her son turned his back to her and trotted towards the chicken coop. Half the grains spilt out of the basket he was holding, leaving a utopic trail for the birds that soon landed where his little feet had been, and making his mum snort in mirth.

She could vaguely remember herself at his age, running across the yard and “doing chores”. What she could also remember was how the sun rays caught in her mother’s fiery red hair, as if they longed to settle there from the first moment they'd started their journey from the sun.

Jenny closed her eyes, feeling the sun caressing her own face now. Standing in the same spot where her mother had been all these years ago, she placed a hand on her protruding belly and another on her waist.

 

She was younger than wee Jamie when the new baby had arrived, having Ellen’s red hair and her Da’s blue eyes, just like Willie’s and her own.

“Now you’ll all look at me with that Fraser cat eyes,” Ellen had said laughing. She was glowing, holding her wee bairn close to her breast.

It was just a tiny bundle, but it changed Jenny’s world.

_Jamie._

 

With her lips pressed in a tight line, she headed back to the house. Just when she’d ascended the few stone stairs, she stopped and turned to look at the estate around her.

She’d never been far from Lallybroch. It was her place, the place that once held together everything that mattered to her. Her home, where she was born and raised, made her first bannocks with Mrs Crook, read her first novel and fell in love. The place where she learned to how survive when you’re the only girl among brothers and their friends. 

 

Her heart clenched at the thought. Two curly haired brothers, with slanted eyes and kind hearts that were always there for her. When they had lost Willie, grief drew them together to support each other, the four of them tight as a fist. A fist missing a finger. And just as simply, they parted with a piece of their hearts - their gift for him to keep in eternity. Jenny was suddenly no-one’s little sister. She had lost her ally, the one that winked at her with mischief and defended her when she found herself in trouble. With Willie gone, none of them would ever be the same person again. But they loved each other something fierce and that helped them continue.

 

For a few more years, at least. But fate wasn’t kind to Jenny. 

She lost her mother and baby brother. She witnessed her Da’s heart breaking in a million pieces. She saw Jamie getting desperate and angry for all the pain he couldn’t stop. But Jenny didn’t have the luxury to mourn or let the black hole in her heart swallow her whole. She stayed strong for them, as her mother would want her to. She bit her lips and tasted the blood, and licked her tears and moved her legs to keep things going. 

The damage was irreparable, but the three of them continued. Half and damaged, but they continued.

 

Until Jamie got imprisoned.  That was the final hit, taking her father’s life and scattering the pieces from her shattered soul in the four winds - lost forever. And Jenny was left alone, in a home that was empty and hollow.

 

Misfortune, loss and pain had lashed at her so hard that she ended up believing there was nothing else in the world. But she never gave up. And one day, happiness knocked at her door, at the moment it was least expected - as it always does, a traveller from afar.

Ian came back in her life. Day by day and night by night he kept bringing back her heart’s lost fragments. Glueing each one next to the previous, so she would be whole again. Quietly, patiently. 

 

They had been together in the parlor the evening the trunk arrived from Castle Leoch, informing them that her clotheid of a brother not only lived, but got married to boot. She had been bewildered at first, but Ian’s huge smile helped her realize the gift she was given.

Shaking her head, Jenny had taken in a deep breath and let relief flood her.

_Jamie was alive, thank God._

 

A light kick from her unborn Fraser - because Fraser he would be, stubborn as an ox if Jenny could judge from her past months’ experience - brought her out of her reverie.

“So much work remains,” she thought to herself and with a last glance towards the chicken coop and her little miracle she entered the house.

Her house. Where her sons and daughters would never feel alone or broken.

She would make sure of this.


End file.
